A type of electronic defensive weapon commonly referred to as a "stun gun" has become recently popular because of its immediate effectiveness for temporarily stunning or disabling the person against which it is used while not causing permanent or substantial injury. The weapon, comprises a hand-held and lightweight case having a pair of contact probes across which an arc is created when the device is energized with the probes contacting a subject's body. The device also includes a pair of test gap probes exposed in a cavity extending between the contact probes. These test gap probes, sometimes referred to as inner probes are in electrical contact with the contact probes, but are separated by a closer distance than the contact probes. The test gap probes or inner probes cause a spark discharge for temporarily relieving the high voltage at the output terminals under unloaded conditions. When the device is used against a subject with only the output terminal contact probes contacting the subject's skin, an output of 45,000 to in excess of 50,000 volts is directed to the subject across the contact probes to yield the effective result of the weapon. However, occasionally a subject is contacted such that the subject's arm, leg, or other body portion extends into the cavity and unintentionally simultaneously contacts both test gap probes. If this occurs, when the weapon is energized, because of the shorter gap or distance between the test gap probes, a substantially smaller and relatively ineffective charge is delivered to the subject because of the divided dual current paths thereby greatly defeating or substantially reducing the effectiveness of the device. It is to the elimination of this problem that the present invention is directed.